MSI CEO: Even Low-End AMD X570 Motherboards Will Be Expensive

The arrival of AMD's Ryzen 3000 series CPUs brings more multi-threaded heft to the mainstream desktop and sweet new technologies like PCIe 4.0. Unfortunately, according to what we learned in an interview with MSI CEO Charles Chiang and from other vendors at Computex 2019, the platform will also bring higher pricing for the next series of AMD motherboards. As a result, X570 motherboard pricing could be similar to Intel's expensive Z390 motherboards, if not higher. In fact, even the lowest-end X570 boards could cost more than most previous-gen X470 boards, though Chiang stressed that pricing decisions are still not finalized.

That's a big change from AMD's traditional role of having significantly less expensive motherboards than Intel. When asked about the source of the higher pricing, Chiang said, "Technology wise, PCIe Gen 4 will contribute a lot of cost on the motherboard, and AMD right now they intend to sell X570 chipset for higher pricing."

AMD used an ASMedia chipset for its previous-gen motherboards, but the company now produces its own silicon for the task. Chiang told us that, while pricing isn't final, it appears that AMD could increase the cost of the chipset itself significantly. "But you know, [it is] still in the discussion. It's not finalized yet, but it appears that [we] will have a price gap between X570 and X470."

(Image credit: MSI)

Chiang also says that AMD is changing its marketing strategy to focus on being a premium brand, as opposed to being the value alternative.

"Lots of people ask me, what do you think about today's AMD? I say today's AMD is completely different company compared to two, three, five years ago," Chiang said. "They have nice technology and they are there to put the higher spec with the reasonable pricing. But right now they say, "Hey Charles, lets push to marketing to the higher [end]. So let's sell higher-pricing motherboards, higher-spec motherboards, and let's see what will happen in the market. So I don't think that AMD is the company that wants to sell low cost here, low cost there."

That change in focus could make X570 motherboard pricing comparable to, or even higher than, many Intel Z390 motherboards. "I would like to say the price would be comparable, and even higher for some SKUs," Chiang said. "But I can tell that if an X570 is compared to our Z390, if the specs are equal and everything, I don't think we [are] going to price AMD lower. I don't think that's realistic because the cost of the motherboard [will] be higher, and maybe the pricing [of] the chipset [is] higher."

The heightened motherboard pricing also stems from several other factors. Chiang told us that PCIe 4.0, which requires more power, complicates design and requires faster switches, which will "contribute a lot of cost on the motherboard." We already know that, courtesy of PCIe 4.0, AMD's chipset has also increased power consumption to above 10W, which is a big jump from the previous-gen's ~3.5W.

Chiang said that means most X570 motherboards will come with active cooling via a fan, sometimes paired with a heatpipe that extends to the beefier VRM coolers. So far we know of only one announced X570 board with passive chipset cooling, Gigabyte's top-end X570 Aorus Xtreme. Like other vendors we saw at the show, MSI is also beefing up its power circuitry with more phases, which ultimately requires more cooling and adds another layer of cost to the equation.

"So, technology-wise the cost will be higher because of that. And then from the market strategy-wise, AMD also want to put that in higher segmentation. So, it's a situation. You can really expect this motherboard pricing will [have] a lot of gap between the X470s and 570s," Chiang said.

Chiang noted that X470 motherboards will remain in the market and could serve as the value alternative, and when asked how long MSI intends to keep producing them, Chiang responded, "Will X470 stay in the market? It's good question. It depends on the price gap. If the price gap [is] there, people still looking for reasonable pricing, they might go for X470."

We expect to learn more next week at E3, and will update as necessary.

This is unfortunate given that there's been no news about B550 boards being available any time soon. Myself and others have been recommending to a lot of people who are planning builds soon that they wait for the Ryzen 3K release. But if the cheapest boards available for the foreseeable future might be 150-200+ USD that'll turn a lot of people off.

Overall prices look to increase in the short term, but I would think that Intel based motherboards are going to have the same cost pressures (such PCIe 4.0 support) so I don't expect much change in the relative differences in pricing out AMD system vs. Intel.

B450 was released....3-5 months after X470. I'd expect a similar roll-out with B550. With X570 purportedly costing so much though, it seems foolish on AMD's part to hold back B550 unless this is a stall tactic to allow better yields / more supply capacity to evolve for Ryzen 3000.

I've also heard rumors that B550 wont' feature PCIe4.0. Is that still considered an accurate rumor?

Backward compatibility be damned. Unless consumers are upgrading, I don't care to play the "is the BIOS flashed to support the newest CPU" lottery when buying a new mobo+CPU.

I think some motherboard manufacturer would make a killing if they released a X570 with all the bells and whistles and used PCIe3.0 instead of PCIe4.0 and all the expensive components it requires. I think the computer users might thank manufacturers for not having to worry about tiny fan failures, just for a feature that many can probably live without.

I think some motherboard manufacturer would make a killing if they released a X570 with all the bells and whistles and used PCIe3.0 instead of PCIe4.0 and all the expensive components it requires. I think the computer users might thank manufacturers for not having to worry about tiny fan failures, just for a feature that many can probably live without.

PCIe version is largely a function of the CPU and chipset, neither of which are made by the motherboard manufacturers.

B450 was released....3-5 months after X470. I'd expect a similar roll-out with B550. With X570 purportedly costing so much though, it seems foolish on AMD's part to hold back B550 unless this is a stall tactic to allow better yields / more supply capacity to evolve for Ryzen 3000.

I've also heard rumors that B550 wont' feature PCIe4.0. Is that still considered an accurate rumor?

Then it would only make sense to launch a B550 chipset if there are other notable changes from B450/X470, like new USB support, XFR3, etc., like from X370 to X470 (improved XFR2 was a great feature, imo).

Which is an important question: does anyone know what other changes the 5-series chipsets will bring?

From what I understand, the Ryzen 2 (3000 series) CPUs will overclock equally well on an X470 and X570. Whatever they call their automatic over clocking (too lazy to look it up) will not be updated on the X570. Of course, better VRMs and cooling can be applied to both. But the underlying overclocking tech will not change.

With that in mind, I'm probably going to get an X470 for my next gaming rig. It will overclock well, I don't need PCIe 4.0 speeds for my SSD or GPU. And most everything else will be the same.